Breast is best
Breast milk is the best milk for babies. Breast milk provides the ideal balanced nutrition and protection for your baby. Maternal nutritional requirements increase during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Therefore mothers’ diets should include a wide variety of nutritious food and healthy snacks.
If you are considering bottle feeding, always seek professional advice as once bottle feeding has commenced it can be difficult to revert to breast feeding. Partial bottle feeding may also adversely affect breastfeeding by reducing the supply of breast milk. Always use and prepare infant formula as directed by the manufacturer; unnecessary or improper use of infant formula can be hazardous to the health of your baby.
Before using infant formula, always consider the social and financial implications, such as issues of convenience and cost to the household of using infant formula for at least 12 months. If you are considering using infant formula, it is important to discuss this with a health professional.
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What about Heinz: Colour coded foods
To help make shopping for baby food easier, Heinz has created labels with different colour background cues and added ‘age and stage buttons’ to all their baby food so you can choose what you need at a glance. Each colour range has a different flavour or texture to suit baby’s age and stage of development.
Blue Labels: 4 months + Foods: These are puréed foods for your baby when they’re first starting out on solids at around four months old. Look for the blue label Heinz baby foods in a can, jar, or pouch and spout. Foods in this range should only be offered to infants over the age of 4 months.
Yellow Labels: 6 Months+ Foods: These foods are mashed ideal for babies from around six months. The Heinz yellow labelled baby food range is designed to give your baby more tastes and textures.
Yellow Labels: 6 Months+ Sweet Foods: These are suitable dessert-style foods for babies from around six months onwards. They’re not essential, but they still offer a range of nutrients and give more variety to your baby’s diet.
Orange Labels: 12 Months+ Foods:
These foods are suitable for toddlers from 12 months. They have a chunky texture to encourage further development of chewing using teeth.
There are some infants who are allergic to particular ingredients. Always refer to the product labels clear ingredients list to identify anything unsuitable for your baby.
The age range is a general guide too, however, the 4 months+ foods should only be offered to infants over 4 months old. Babies will vary in what foods they can manage and when, but the labels ensure that no products will have ingredients unsuitable for babies younger than the age shown.
Remember that just because your baby is progressing through the stages, it doesn’t mean you need to stop feeding them from the previous stage if it’s a favourite of theirs. You can also add other cooked fruit or vegetables to increase texture.